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Calling London -- Is Everyone Alright??

By grrlscientist on December 7, 2006.

Six people were injured and up to 150 houses were damaged when a tornado swept through several London streets leaving a trail of destruction.

Rooftops were ripped off homes and cars were badly damaged as the twister hit the Kensal Rise area that is in north-west London. One man suffered a serious head injury and five more people were treated for minor injuries and shock.

Fire services closed six roads in a zone covering a quarter of a square mile and searched 100 properties. Fire crews were called at about 1100 GMT on Thursday to Chamberlayne Road and surrounding streets, amid reports of collapsed scaffolding and damage to buildings.

Witnesses said there was heavy rain and sleet, then debris flying through the air. Resident Colin Brewer said: "It was really, really incredible. All of a sudden I saw a swirl starting to form and then, it was amazing, but it then touched land.

Scene of tornado One user's picture diary "I then saw clumps of all sorts of things flying into air. "It went from exciting to terrifying." He reported seeing trees ripped up from the roots, front doors missing, windows smashed and people being hit on the head by flying objects. The UK experiences an estimated 50 tornadoes on land each year, putting it top of the European twister league. The BBC Weather Center said the tornado lasted less than one minute.

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Holy crap, Grrl, this gave me a turn! Last time I saw notices like this headline the Tube bomb had gone off and one of my friends was planning to travel to London that morning. (Luckily she was running late and hadn't left Cambridge.) Not a pleasant flashback. Good to see there were no deaths from this one, though still pretty grim for those whose house were trashed.

Yeah, we're roughly OK. Tornadoes are actually not uncommon in the UK - about 30/year, concentrated along the south coast, but rarely do they do much damage. About one a year damages a house, and everyone pretends they've never heard of it before.

Sadly, the BBC was overcome by psuedoscience as a result, tried to blame it on global warming, and consulted a "long-range weather forecaster"/charlatan who announced there wouldn't be another one (ya think? regression to the mean - who'dathoughtit?) and that this was because of "greater connectivity between the Earth and the Sun".